All Button Up

Camille is at home

Camille Delyon is at home. That's the message that her subconscious insists on repeating as the young woman approaches her hometown.

Camille now all dolled up in a navy blue dress that falls right around the thigh, cherishes with kindness the memories of a time when pants were to her the best of friends. Memories that always leave a bittersweet taste in her mouth.

Now at the age of eighteen Delyon is the reflection of the child she was at thirteen. She still doesn't like to go to church on Sunday morning, or any kind of morning. She hates the way that her dresses feel and the way that they tighten up around her waist. She loves the smell of muddy grass on a cold and rainy morning and the smell of laundry that's been hung out to dry on a hot summer's day. The girl she was is now the woman she knows.

Camille is at the bus stop. It's located in the centre of the village, right in front of the church.

"Longeverne." She says just above a whisper.

As Delyon gets off the bus with her luggage in hand, she notices the figure of Father Simon, now older than when she saw him for the last time. She remembers the memories that she once shared with him and gives him an open smile. The man now in his mid-fifties looks toward her but strangely doesn't return the gesture.

"Maybe he doesn't remember me." Thinks Camille. It was a plausible idea, after all, Father Simon had dealt with a battalion of children over the years, and maybe he still did. It was a plausible idea but it was nothing more than that.

Simon with his face now a little bit wrinkled looked at the girl and at what she had dressed on and with a disapproving look, turned his back on her and left the scene.

"I'm back." She whispers with a somewhat sarcastic and childish smile planted on her face.

Crossing paths with Father Simon made her think of his son, La Crique.

"The boy was a figure." She says to herself as she walks through the village.

Camille recalls the time when the little boy was caught smoking a cigarette right behind the church during the Sunday Mass. She couldn't forget his frightened face and the choir clothes he had dressed on. Camille tenderly laughs at the memory.

Of course that remembering La Crique made her remember Bacaillé, LeBrac, and the brother's Gibus, the oldest Grandgibus and the youngest Tigibus.

"The troupe of the buttons." She ends up saying in a rather loud tone without realizing the presence of the people that were now forming around her.

Right across the street a young man takes interest in those words. The words are somewhat familiar and just as they do to Delyon they too bring fond memories to the boy, but nevertheless the figure of Camille it's not familiar to him. When he first saw her, he thought to himself that she looked like she came out of a pin-up magazine and that made him smile.

Camille is too involved in her thoughts to look at the people around her. She's thinking about the Velrans, about the parties and the battles, and again about the little Tigibus, that was the sweetest kid she had ever known.

The young man that a few minutes ago was just across the street is now getting closer. He thinks that maybe, after all, Delyon's face may be a little familiar to him and is now approaching her with apprehension. Underneath he still thinks that her face could be familiar because he saw her in one of those burning magazines.

"Sorry Miss, do you need any help?" He questions in a low tone and with a smile on his lips.

Camille is now back to being eighteen.

"Oh, everything is fine, thank you. I know this village just like the palm of my..." Delyon couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. When she looked at the face of the young man next to her she felt a thrill of excitement run through her body. She recognizes that face too well.

"Camus." She says still shocked. The word comes out in a whisper almost so low that he can barely hear her.

"Sorry? I don't think I under..." And even though he didn't realize it at first, by now he already knows it.

"Camille." He says all amazed but deep down is frantically questioning himself if he should or should not hug her.

"You got so tall. I barely recognized you." She manages to say.

"Well, you had your fare of changings too," Camus states remembering his initial thought of her. Boy is he embarrassed. He can even feel himself starting to blush.

"Not too many changings though, I still prefer a pair of pants to this." She affirms while touching and twitching the fabric of her dress with her unoccupied hand.

Camus smiles and Camille looks at him for a few seconds too long. His smile looks just like it used to when he too was thirteen and even though Camus wasn't a boy of too many smiles she still remembered his.

"So..." Camus says cutting Camille off her thoughts.

"Your back at Longeverne?" He asks with his hands in the back pockets of his pants.

"I feel like I never left," Delyon confesses glancing at the boy and then at the view around them.

"Me too," Camus admits as he contemplates the village.

"When did you come back?" She asks. If her memory didn't betray her Camus had also gone away. Mostly everyone had. Every kid wanted to be something more and unfortunately in Longeverne, such a thing was not possible.

"Just last week. I wanted to visit my mother and see if she needed help with a few things." He explains.

"Have you seen everyone?" She finds herself asking.
"I mean, how rude of me. Camus, how's your mother?" Camille corrects.

Camus laughs.

"You don't need to correct yourself, your talking to me. Although I have to admit that his strange hearing that name again."  He confesses.

Camille feels her face warming up. Of course, Camus isn't his real name and she can't believe that she called him that for the all conversation. She can't believe that he let her call him that for the all conversation.

"You're turning red Delyon." He denotes with a superior smirk.

Camille laughs it off now embarrassed by the reddish colour that is trying to spread in her cheeks.

"Camus is such a lovely nickname that I got carried away." She says feeling her face a little less flushed.

"Actually, I might prefer Camus. It's the way you say it, you make it sound so pretty." He says. Something about those words made Camille's stomach ache and although she doesn't know the motive, the young version of her does.

The young version of Camille always felt something for young Camus and she firmly believed that every girl that was around her age, at a certain point felt it too. Not that he was romantic or even kind but something about him made every single girl like him, maybe it was the fact that he was the only boy dating at that time.

"You may be tall now but your still a flirt Louis," Camille says picking up her luggage from the stony ground.

"What can I say? It's in my genes." Louis responds taking her suitcase in hand.